PlayStation 3 Worldwide Sales Eclipse Xbox 360's

While the general perception is that this generation has been "won" by Microsoft -- largely due to the Xbox 360's dominance in North America -- analyst firm IDC's data now shows a slight advantage for Sony's PlayStation 3.

This near dead heat is surprisingly, considering that Sony got a late start in this generation, and has struggled to catch Microsoft in the U.S. and Canada. It's also worth noting that -- despite the previous conventional wisdom -- the video game market in this generation was robust enough to support not one, but three, successful home game consoles (including Nintendo's Wii).